Medical marijuana business takes root in Ferndale

FERNDALE -- Patients from as far away as Traverse City and Ann Arbor have come to the Clinical Relief medical marijuana clinic and dispensary in Ferndale since it opened several weeks ago.

"Most medical marijuana patients don't have a source they can go to consistently," said Ryan Richmond, co-owner of the clinic on Hilton Road just north of Eight Mile. "Once patients have a state-issued ID card they are welcome to come to our clinic."

Richmond, 33, of Royal Oak is a real estate investor who opened the clinic with three other co-owners.

"We have a total of seven other clinics in Colorado and Nevada," he said.

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Workers inside the 2,500-square-foot storefront building wear white coats and sell 15 to 20 different types of marijuana. Prices range from about $500 to $700 an ounce. Two-dose portions of bottled pop, candy bars and suckers are sold for $10 to $15 each.

The clinic is decorated in a minimalist industrial style, with some artwork, chairs, tables and a glass display case for marijuana products with names like AK-47, Durban Poison and Super Silver Haze.

"We have over 500 patients," Richmond said, "which shows there is a need for this."

Five medical doctors work with the clinic. They see patients who want an authorization to use medical marijuana, which allows them to get an ID card from the Michigan Department of Community Health. The clinic also plans to open a kitchen for classes on how to cook or make marijuana products for patients.

Richmond said no marijuana is grown or smoked at the clinic.

"We buy (marijuana) from a network of caregivers," he said.

Michigan's medical marijuana law allows caregivers to grow up to 12 plants each for as many as five patients. Patients are allowed to grow up to a dozen plants for themselves.

Though Ferndale last week enacted a 90-moratorium on medical marijuana facilities while officials develop a policy on how to deal with the business, Clinical Relief opened before the deadline and is not affected by the restriction.

"Some people seem to be freaked out about this subject," said Mayor Craig Covey, who voted against enacting a moratorium and toured the Clinical Relief operation last week. "We seem to have gotten overly dramatic about this issue, but we're not the first city to have one of these facilities and there are others that I know of in Oak Park, Southfield, Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor."

Covey doubts that Ferndale will become home to a large number of medical marijuana dispensaries.

"I don't want Ferndale to have more than its share, but people who need marijuana as medicine will want to be able to get it close to home."

The MDCH is backlogged with applications from caregivers and patients. The department has gotten 37,924 applications since April 2009. It has issued 20,929 ID cards for patients, and 9,052 caregiver cards, said Celeste Clarkson, a spokeswoman for the MDCH.

The state does not license or track the number of medical marijuana dispensaries. Some estimate nearly two dozen medical marijuana facilities have already opened statewide. Some cities such as Livonia, Troy and Birmingham have banned medical marijuana facilities in their communities. Others, like Ferndale, Royal Oak, Saginaw, Grand Rapids and Bloomfield Township have enacted moratoriums on marijuana facilities while they decide whether to develop policies to control the businesses or ban them.

A common complaint from law enforcement officials statewide is that federal law still prohibits the sale or possession of marijuana. Federal DEA agents have arrested medical marijuana growers in California and Colorado, two of the 15 states with medical marijuana laws for patients. While federal suspects are usually accused of initially violating the terms of laws in the states with medical marijuana laws, DEA agents can theoretically arrest anyone with any amount of marijuana because it is prohibited by federal law, which supersedes state laws.

"The Obama administration has suggested they are not going to chase marijuana providers doing it according to (state) law," said Matthew Abel, a Detroit attorney who specializes in defending marijuana cases. "But federal enforcement continues to be a priority against people who are doing it for profit."

Federal policy on targeting medical marijuana growers and sellers could also change under a new administration.

"There are definitely less risky investments one could make than medical marijuana" operations, Abel said.

Ferndale Police Capt. Timothy Collins has toured Clinical Relief's facility and said it is legal.

"They are operating within the law," Collins said. "But there are many unknowns that are not spelled out in the state law. Some of the concerns we have are to make sure the operators don't dispense marijuana to people who don't have licenses. That's not an accusation but it is a concern."

Sal Agro, 68, is a medical marijuana patient who works at Clinical Relief. He said he has suffered for years with joint disease that affects his neck, shoulders, hip and back.

Agro said he was on powerful prescription narcotic painkillers like Oxycontin and Vicodin before he began using edible forms of marijuana more than a month ago.

"When I was on the prescription drugs I couldn't function," he said. "Now I can function and I get a good night's sleep."